The Rule of Three Read online

  “These are more like Make-Up-with-My-Sister cupcakes. The other ones were more like Break-Up cupcakes, when Alex and I were mad and fighting. It’s OK to bake cupcakes when you’re in a good mood, too, you know. Cupcakes make people happy. It’s like a rule.”

  “Stevie, is this what you’ve been doing all along?” Mom asked. “Not just stockpiling cupcakes for the cake-off, but baking to deal with your feelings?”

  “Stevie always bakes cupcakes when she’s mad,” said Joey.

  “I guess so,” I said. “It’s not like I planned it. But it works. You guys put feelings into acting. I put them into baking cupcakes.”

  “Like the My-Sister-Is-a-Porcupine cupcakes and the I-Burnt-My-Sister’s-Hair-and-Feel-Bad cupcakes,” said Joey.

  “Mmm-mmm.” Mom made more yummy sounds, but she had a stare-at-the-toaster, Fondue-Sue look on her face at the same time. “Stevie?” said Mom, polishing off the last of the icing on her finger. “Any chance you could finish decorating these later?”

  “Huh?”

  “And come with me?”

  “Why? Where are we going?”

  “To the studio. Grab a jacket. You, my brilliant middle daughter, have just given me a genius of an idea.”

  I made a funny face at Joey, but she didn’t notice. She had her nose too far into the icing bowl. “Don’t eat all the icing!” I called over my shoulder, as Fondue Sue grabbed me by the hand and herded me out of the kitchen.

  Mom asked me to wait outside the program manager’s office. I couldn’t figure out why she’d dragged me all the way down here just to sit and watch her through the window arguing with her boss.

  Actually, I couldn’t quite tell if all the waving of arms meant that she was excited or frustrated. The last time I’d been at Mom’s studio was when I’d blurted out about wanting to audition for the play. That’s when my fight with Alex started. It seemed like forever ago now that we’d made up and the play was over.

  I found myself there again, flipping through old magazines. In the middle of some women’s magazine, something caught my eye: an ad for moisturizing lotion with a French-sounding name.

  From the French phrase bien dans sa peau, which means to be happy in your own skin.

  Happy in your own skin.

  The words jumped off the page at me, making my heart skip. Maybe I had been trying too hard to do the things Alex does. Wanting to act in plays, stealing her shirt, going out for the same role.

  Even though I think it’s never a bad thing to take a risk and try something new, I wasn’t Alex. I would never be Alex. I didn’t even want to be Alex.

  I was Me. Myself. I.

  Stevie.

  Happy in my own skin.

  Or as the Bard himself said: To thine own self be true.

  Being true to myself was singing — using my voice to sing in the play. And already making plans for next year’s cake-off: world’s biggest cupcake!

  Who knew that moisturizer held the secret of life?

  I’d almost forgotten about Mom when she tapped on the glass and waved me into the office.

  “Hi, honey, c’mon in. You remember Betsy. Betsy, this is my middle daughter, Stevie.” Mom hooked a hunk of hair behind her ear, pushing it back into place. “Stevie, I pitched an idea to Betsy for our next show, and she’s agreed to go to the station manager on the strength of the idea and push for more episodes of Fondue Sue next season. Now, you tell me, isn’t that just fantastic?”

  “Yeah, Mom, that’s great!” I tried to sound as happy as Mom even though I still didn’t have a clue what that had to do with me.

  “It’ll be all about baking as a way of channeling your feelings and emotions,” said Betsy. “Your mom’s been telling me about all your cupcakes.”

  “Hey, yeah! That’s a great idea for a show, Mom.”

  “Maybe we can even think of a way to make them healthy,” said Betsy. “You know, like, zucchini cupcakes or carrot-cake cupcakes.” I exchanged glances with Mom, trying not to laugh.

  “And that’s not all,” said Mom. “Betsy had another brilliant idea.” Mom nodded toward her boss.

  “I was thinking, if you’d be willing, how would you like to come on the show with your mom, help her do some baking, maybe talk a little bit about your cupcakes? What do you think?”

  “Me? On TV? Are you serious?”

  “I think it would be great,” Betsy said. “Help us reach out to a younger demographic. Get kids interested in cooking and baking.”

  It was all I could do to keep from jumping in the air, throwing my arms out, and screaming YAY!

  “Honey, isn’t this exciting?” Mom said, squeezing me in a sideways hug.

  I had to leave Mom and Betsy to work out some of the details with the station manager. Inside, I was turning somersaults as I walked back out into the hall. I tried to steady myself by staring at animal pictures in National Geographic. I even tried solving a Reader’s Digest crossword puzzle.

  Seven down. Expression of high joy. Eleven letters.

  OVERTHEMOON.

  “Mom?” I asked, when she was finally done and we got back into the car. “Do you mind if — could we make a stop on the way home?”

  “No way!” shrieked Alex.

  “Then what happened?” Joey asked.

  Alex, Joey, and I were all three sitting cross-legged on my bed, and I, Yours Truly, had called a meeting of the Sisters Club. After our secret handshake, I told my sisters all about Mom dragging me to the studio and barging into the program manager’s office and blurting out her Big Idea. I still had my hoodie on, pulled tight around my face, and I hadn’t yet breathed a word about an even bigger surprise still to come.

  “I’ve never seen Mom talk so fast,” I told my sisters. “We’re talking spit flying.”

  “Ooh,” said Joey, wiping her face like it was happening right then.

  “So, go on,” Alex coaxed.

  “Mom told her boss that her daughter (moi) gave her a wonderful idea, and that they should do a whole show on cooking with emotion, you know, like baking stuff when you feel lousy or happy or just plain blue. She explained that I’ve been making these I-Hate-My-Sister cupcakes and everything — Sorry, Alex! — and how she’d like to do a show about channeling your feelings and stuff through cooking and baking.”

  “So, hurry up, tell us, what did the Big Boss say?”

  For a second, I could hardly breathe, being back with my sisters, having a meeting of the Sisters Club, like old times.

  “So Betsy, Mom’s boss, she had to clear it with the station manager, Mr. Morrissey, and he came over and went like this.” In a deep, sort of scary voice, I said, “‘I don’t like it, Susan. I love it!’”

  “Aaah!” Joey squealed and Alex clapped her hands together.

  “Wait, that’s not all,” I said, trying to eke out the suspense. “Mom morphed into this other person and said, ‘Let’s talk turkey, Nolan,’ and I thought she meant a show about turkey, you know, like for Thanksgiving, but then I got it that she meant money, because next thing I knew I was back out in the hall reading about meerkats in a ripped-up National Geographic.”

  “I love meerkats!” said Joey.

  “So there I was, reading all about meerkat superfamilies and thinking how these guys were so cool. I learned that their life span is only like ten years and just when I was getting bummed out thinking that if I were a meerkat, I would be, well, let’s face it — dead — Mom came out and hugged me. l mean, lifted me up off the floor and told me they’d renewed her show for thirteen more episodes!”

  More squealing from Alex and Joey.

  “And . . .” I waited for them to calm down. “AND . . . here I was picturing myself in Meerkat Heaven when the Big Boss said, “Stevie, how would you like to be on TV? Betsy’s told me her idea and we’d love for you to come on the show. After all, you were the inspiration.”

  My sisters jumped up and down and hugged each other and Joey said, “Amazingness!”

  Alex made a poor-me fa
ce and fake-whined, “I’m so jealous!”

  “Yeah, I know it’s cool and everything, but just think of the stage fright!” I squealed. “I mean, it’s TV!”

  “Don’t worry,” Alex said, brushing my bangs to the side. “I can give you some acting tips so you won’t hurl in front of a live studio audience or anything.” Joey and I laughed, and Alex smiled, her eyes flashing in a happy-for-me kind of way, not a green-eyed-monster kind of way.

  All of a sudden, I sprang up off the bed and rooted through a jumble of clothes in my bottom drawer. I pulled out the black shirt I’d worn for the audition. “Here’s your black shirt, by the way,” I said, giving it back to Alex.

  “Aren’t you ever going to take your coat off and stay awhile?” Joey asked, eyeing my laced-up hoodie.

  I took a deep breath and loosened the ties around my hood. “Ta-da!” I said, tossing back my hood and revealing my surprise.

  “Holy Hamlet!” Alex shrieked when she saw my hair.

  “Leaping Lady Macbeth!” Joey said, sucking in a breath. She held one hand over her mouth while she pointed at my head with the other.

  “Your hair! You cut off your hair?!” Alex shrieked again. “It’s shorter than Shakespeare’s! Shorter than Hamlet’s!”

  “But you’re not as bald as Humpty Dumpty,” said Joey, giggling.

  “Look who’s talking!” I said, and all three of us cracked up.

  “Who unhaired you?” Joey asked.

  “Yeah, when did this happen?” asked Alex.

  “On the way home,” I said.

  My sisters circled around me, like I was the bride at a wedding or whatever, inspecting me from all sides.

  “‘As she spoke, Jo’— I mean Stevie —‘took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose,’” Joey said, reciting lines from her beloved Chapter 15, “‘for all her abundant hair was cut short.’”

  “That bad, huh?” I asked. “Do I look like an elf?”

  “No,” said Alex. “It’s sassy-chic. Makes you look older.”

  “And your ears don’t even stick out,” said Joey.

  Once my sisters and I had recovered from Short Hair Shock, we realized we still had the rest of the day together without a play or a practice or a cake-off. Alex, Joey, and I sat on the floor in the family room, watching the video Dad took of Once Upon a Mattress, and laughing our heads off.

  “Wait. Back it up, back it up,” said Joey. “I gotta see that prince guy slip on the banana peel again.”

  “I can’t believe that wasn’t actually on purpose,” I said.

  “Good thing everybody thought it was, though,” said Alex.

  We watched the whole thing, reciting lines and singing along with the songs. And the parts where stuff went wrong — we watched those at least three times each.

  “Read again what they said in the review,” said Alex.

  I grabbed the sheets I had printed off the school website and read aloud. “‘It’s a tragedy that more people did not turn out to see the musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress.’”

  “Just skip to the good parts,” said Joey.

  “OK, OK. Here we go. ‘Despite a few stumbles in the first half, the cast of Once Upon a Mattress cleverly turned these mishaps to their advantage, adding funny moments with comic timing that could not have been better had they been rehearsed.’

  “Here’s my favorite part. ‘One such move had Stevie Reel, sister to Alex, the play’s lead, stepping out of the chorus to fill in the lyrics on “Happily Ever After” with her singular, silver-tongued voice.’”

  “Where do they get this stuff?” asked Alex. “Keep going. Read my favorite part.”

  “‘A bold move by Alex Reel had her playing Princess Winnifred with short, cropped hair. Reel could not have been more energetic, springing to life in Act 2, full of spit and vinegar.’”

  “Remind me again why ‘full of spit’ is a good thing?” Joey asked.

  Alex leaned back against the couch and howled.

  “Speaking of vinegar, what do you say I hit the kitchen so we can mack on some cupcakes with bomb frosting?” I teased, imitating the glam girls in one of Alex’s teen magazines.

  “Snack Attack!” said Joey.

  “What’s that got to do with vinegar?” Alex asked. I didn’t dare tell them that even Pink Velvet cupcakes called for my secret ingredient — a dash of vinegar.

  On my way back with the positively perfect Pink Velvets, I paused for a moment in the doorway before crossing the threshold to the family room. My sisters were elbow-wrestling and comparing feet and Alex was trying out sparkly clips in Joey’s short hair.

  Joey chewed on her pencil, probably dreaming up a new list, while Alex twined her necklace around her finger. Comedy and Tragedy were reunited, back where they belonged.

  Alex wasn’t just Actress. Big Sister. Fink Face. Wicked Witch. Beauty. Green-Eyed Monster. Porcupine. Princess.

  She was all of those things.

  Joey, too. Jo, J-o-e, Reader, Writer, Little Sister, List-maker, Duck, Funny Girl.

  And so was I: Singer. Baker. Sister. Peacemaker.

  Watching my sisters, it hit me for the first time in a very long time that I wasn’t wishing for things to be the way they used to be. I liked who we were in that moment. Happy in our own skins.

  As Will himself said, All’s Well That Ends Well. For a way-old Wise Guy, that guy sure had smarts.

  “Drum roll, please,” I said, presenting my cupcakes.

  “Finally! We get to eat the Make-Up cupcakes.” Before you could say Nosey Parker, Joey had pink icing on her nose.

  I handed Alex the Princess-and-the-Pea cupcake made especially for her. It had twenty (count them) rainbow stripes of icing for the twenty mattresses in the play, and one green pea sticking out from underneath. And on top, a single candy heart that said, EVER AFTER.

  I crawled across the well-loved corduroy couch and plopped down in the middle of my two sisters. The room went quiet for a minute, except for lip-smacking sounds, that is.

  “Cupcakes. Oh, aren’t cupcakes divinity?” Joey asked, imitating Amy in Little Women.

  “Question,” said Alex, who couldn’t help staring at my short hair again. “Don’t get me wrong, your hair looks great, but, why —?”

  “Why would I chop off my hair on purpose if I didn’t have to?”

  “Exactly,” said Alex, cracking up.

  Sisterhood, I was thinking as I pulled my sisters in tight. How could I explain it to Alex?

  “I can’t be the only one around here with Rapunzel hair. How else is everybody going to know we’re sisters?”

  Knife, Fork, Spoon.

  Rock, Paper, Scissors.

  It’s the Rule of Three.

  “It’ll work,” Alex said. “Okay, you guys. Be serious. This is it. Close your eyes. I’m going to say something Shakespeare, and you can’t fight me on it. Then I’ll count to three. On the count of three, open your eyes, and we each toss our Special Objects into the fire at the same time. Ready? Remember, the most important part is you have to believe.”

  I closed my eyes. The darkness heightened every sound — wind whipping through the trees outside, the ticking of the old mantel clock, my sisters’ breathing. My own heart thumping.

  That’s when I knew I wanted to wish for something besides just ordinary good luck. It was probably just hocus-pocus, but somehow — call it the storm, the dark, the firelight — this felt bigger than a birthday-candle wish.

  I’d wish for . . . something new and exciting to happen to me. Something different. Something daring. Like when I tried out to be in the musical Once Upon a Mattress. Or entered a Cupcake Cooking Contest.

  Alex made her voice soft and spooky again. “‘Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.’”

  Thunk! “What was that?” I asked.

  “Just a branch hitting the roof,” said Alex.

  I opened one eye and peeked. A reflection of firelight flickered in the troll doll’s eyes. Alex was ho
lding a play program from Beauty and the Beast, and Joey had an origami frog in her hand.

  “One . . . two . . . three . . .” Boom! A loud crack of thunder shook the house just as we tossed our Special Objects into the fire. I jumped. Joey screamed and grabbed onto Alex. A streak of lightning flashed blue. The fire flared up, crackled, hissed. Tongues of flames licked the edges of Alex’s program and poof, it disappeared into ash. Joey’s frog went up in smoke. The troll doll melted quicker than the Wicked Witch.

  All of a sudden, a string of pearl-size goose bumps ran up and down my spine. A thrilling kind of tickle at the base of my neck needled me. I scratched it, as if touching it might make it go away.

  Maybe it was just the dark, the night, the storm. The gleam in my sister’s eye. What was Alex playing at? Wasn’t this just a game? What if we had done something, started something, called on something — unleashed something invisible, something bigger than us, this room, this night?

  “Joey, I thought that was your favorite origami frog,” I said to break the spell. “The one you got to jump the best.”

  “Hey! You’re not supposed to peek,” said Joey.

  “It doesn’t matter. We all know anyway,” I said.

  “Nuh-uh,” said Joey. “Nobody knows what Alex threw in the fire.”

  “But we all know what she wished for,” I said.

  Alex’s head snapped around to glare at me. “What?”

  “To get the part of Juliet in the play. Duh. What else?”

  “Oh,” said Alex. “Yeah.” She laughed a nervous laugh, but something secret and shadowy passed over those Mona Lisa eyes of hers. “Look like the innocent flower/But be the serpent under it,” I thought as another line from Macbeth sprang to mind.

  I’d have to wait and see if something new and exciting happened to me. Time would tell. I guess the most I could hope for was that the spell didn’t turn my hair neon green and make it stand up as straight as the troll’s had.

  One glass troll eye stared at me from the bottom of the fireplace. Part of me wanted to yell Wait! and take it back. But it was too late.